Today, Paama Agrico is one of India’s fastest growing and innovative, agri-equipment research and development organization
How are you differentiating Paama Agrico in terms of its product and technology offerings? Tell us something about PAAMA's R&D activities.
The founding vision of Paama Agrico has been to transform the Indian agriculture scenario by ‘sustainably increasing farm productivity'. Hence a scientific, R&D based approach is followed to increase the productive hours of the farmer by eliminating cumbersome and inefficient processes while augmenting the productivity of land which will in turn support the food and supply situation of Indian's growing population:
Product Innovation: Best quality materials are used in Paama Agrico rotavators that have a design life of over five years in comparison to three years of others available in the industry. ‘Quality Sealing' defines the effective life of rotovators. Thus, while other rotavators require the seal to be replaced in every 100-150 hours, Paama rotavators have a zero market for seals.
Process Innovation: We are the only blade manufacturer milling the blades to ensure consistency in every blade, irrespective of the temperature it is subjected to. Hence the wear and tear is bare minimum in our blades and they last 50 percent longer than others available in the market.
Design Innovation: We lead the market in this; we have practically made it possible for the rotavators to be assembled with minimalistic fixtures. It's almost like a Lego. This methodology was adopted to post a drill down analysis of machines performance related to fixtures that were unnecessary and caused several maintenance inefficiencies.
Operational Innovation: We follow best industry practices at every level of the organization. At our shopfloor we engage robots to do welding and handling work which is hazardous to humans. In pursuit of reducing our carbon footprint we have taken several measures, we do not use servers, we are completely dependent on cloud, similar to global IT firms. We have one of the most sophisticated CRM in the industry to connect with customers. The sales team works efficiently through mobiles to connect with out 4,000 plus retailers speared across three states.
Farm mechanization will play a key role in helping India meet its agricultural production requirements. Can you elaborate on the role of technology and machines in facilitating India's agriculture growth?
While the population of the world is projected to touch 10 billion that of India alone is expected to reach 1.7 billion by 2050. Besides this population is projecting a constantly growing pattern with land, one of the most crucial resources remains fixed. Unlike few other countries that are predicting food shortage and acquiring land in Africa, and parts of Asia to secure their future food provision Indian is not doing that at the moment. From being a country dependent on imported food-grains to one that exports its surplus production we have done well. Had we not adapted to green revolution and technological advancements food deficit situations would have prevailed.
In tandem with this thought of adopting to progressive thinking, in a situation where land is a constant factor catering to population that is consistently growing; the simple solution is to optimize the capacity of land to increase production to meet the growth proponent. This is where technology, mechanization or automation of process comes into picture. For example, Paama Agrico blades lasts 50 percent longer than the average blade available in India. If any other common blade lasts 80 hours, our blades function seamlessly for 120 hours. Thus, the farmer only has to spend one day replacing the blade saving him time and avoids resource wastage.
How would you analyse the socio-economic impact of increased mechanisation in the view of abundant farm labour supply available in India?
To begin with, I would like to bust the myth that farm labour availability is abundant in India. Migration from villages to towns is so high that automation has become the need of the day to replace the missing labour. For instance, 15 people are required to transplant a paddy field of about an acre and it is extremely difficult to find them during the Kharif and Rabi season as they are either occupied in their own fields or working for those who pay them highest; creating a dearth of labour. Whereas, paddy transplanters are able to do the same work in 1.5-two hours and most importantly make the farmer self-sufficient.
An example in this framework is that of a farmer who would traditionally use bullocks to till the soil, that would take days together just to level the soil while a rotavator is able to do so in about 1/10th of the time.
In this context, it is more important that we view mechanization as the means of enabling a person to work more efficiently as opposed to the regressing school of thought where it is perceived to replace humans. China is doing this very effectively, though the area of paddy harvest alone if lesser than India, it posts an annual requirement of 75,000 paddy transplanters.
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